During the last six months, books and stories have given us worlds to explore and people to meet.
Books have enabled people in lockdown to ride on railway journeys through Russia, tiptoe through a war-torn Afghanistan, and roam the halls of Hogwarts while still being in reach of the kettle.
It was therefore with pleasure that we celebrated our students’ passion for reading through the Wokingham Libraries’ Authors Into Schools Programme, part of the Wokingham Children’s Book Festival.
It was a slightly different affair this year, but through the magic of Microsoft Teams we were able to welcome Sue Cheung and Julia Gray right into our classrooms.
Sue Cheung, author of Chinglish, talked about her biographical young adult novel about her teenage years. She talked emotionally about feeling torn between familyloyalty and being true to herself, and how it felt to be from a Chinese family growing up in England.
It was an inspiring story of not giving up and of following our dreams.
Just a couple of days later,Julia Gray spoke to us about her novel, I, Ada, a semi-fictional story of Ada Lovelace, a pioneer of computer science and role model for women.
We learned about Ada Lovelace’s unusual upbringing and her unlikely story of how she made such an impact on computing and mathematics.
The students were given the opportunity to ask questions, and it was clear from these that this was a half hour well spent.
They asked about the authors’ inspirations, motivations and challenges, showing an eagerness to take full advantage of the situation.
We hope to work with Wokingham Libraries again, and can’t wait to see our own students’ work in print one day.
By Waingels College
